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Before Its Opening, the Whitney Museum Faces a Protesthttp://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/before-its-opening-the-whitney-museum-faces-a-protest/
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/before-its-opening-the-whitney-museum-faces-a-protest/#respondWed, 15 Apr 2015 11:07:21 +0000http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/before-its-opening-the-whitney-museum-faces-a-protest/The Whitney Museum of American Art has yet to open its doors in a new location in the meatpacking district, but on Tuesday night it unwittingly played host to its first radical art exhibition.

At 11 p.m., activists from groups including Occupy Museums and Occupy the Pipeline gathered on the street in front of the museum for a performance art-style demonstration about a natural gas pipeline that is adjacent to the $422 million building and its vast art collection. A corner of the Whitney’s building became a canvas for their slogans, projected in light over the glassed-in lobby: “Warning! High Pressure Gas Line,” one read. “Pipeline,” said another, with an arrow pointing down. “Inaugural Ceremony,” flashed the introductory sign. “Fracked Gas Line Museum.”

The pipeline, installed and operated by the Houston company Spectra Energy, stretches through New Jersey, under the Hudson River and across the West Side Highway, terminating in a vault beneath the Whitney’s cantilevered, Renzo Piano-designed architecture. The pipeline began operating in 2013. The museum is set to open to the public on May 1.

“I’m sure that most of the people that will attend the receptions for the opening of the Whitney have no clue that the pipeline is there,” said Clare Donohue, program director at Sane Energy Project, a grass-roots group that has been fighting the Spectra project. The event on Tuesday, she added, was to draw attention to the pipeline and to the fact that, should anything go wrong, “the artwork is at risk.”

Organizers of the demonstration posted an open letter to the Whitney at Whitneypipeline.org, asking, in part, why the museum came to be situated above “fossil fuel infrastructure,” and whether there would be any exhibitions dealing with the environment, energy and corporate financing as a result. “Today we are asking: How can a museum that literally covers up the dirty fossil fuel industry be a beacon for the future of art and culture?” the letter read.

Protest organizers said they hoped that museum representatives would take part in a public assembly in the neighborhood this summer to address these issues.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the Whitney said in an email that, “while the natural gas pipeline does not cross directly onto the Museum’s property, we followed the progress of the work because of its close proximity to the site. Governmental regulators, who oversaw and monitored the pipeline’s construction, are responsible for ensuring that the pipeline’s ongoing operation meets all applicable standards and requirements.”

In the past, press officers for the Whitney have said that they trust the regulators to determine that the pipeline project is safe. (Spectra made several revisions to the early plans and exceeded federal safety standards, it said in 2011.) The museum will not store art in the basement, near the vault, and will host most of its exhibitions starting on the fifth floor, in part to protect them from potential flooding, which became an issue during Hurricane Sandy.

The protest had a theatrical flair, complete with a printed program, a bugler and Frida Kahlo, a pseudonymous founding member of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of feminist activists. She came decked out in her ceremonial gorilla mask.

“We’ve been involved in criticizing museums for 30 years,” she said. The collective of anonymous artist-activists has protested what it calls the near total absence of female artists in collections and exhibitions, and more recently, with other groups, the corporate interests that have helped to finance cultural institutions lately. “This is like a time bomb that’s ticking – it could go off, if not here, then somewhere else,” she said.

Shortly before 11 p.m., about two dozen activists and supporters gathered beneath the High Line and then marched over to the Whitney, at Gansevoort Street and 10th Avenue, to watch the lighted projections (supplied by the Illuminator, a vehicle-based installation made infamous during Occupy Wall Street) unfold. Noah Fischer, an artist and a member of Occupy Museums, gave a speech and led a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of the Whitney’s steps, holding a banner that read “Inauguration of a Fracked Gas Pipe Museum,” which he snipped alongside Frida Kahlo. The bugler improvised a few jazzy notes. Passers-by paid no notice.

But many could be hurt, Ms. Donohue said, if an accident caused an explosion like the one that rocked San Bruno, Calif., where a pipe was laid, killing eight people and decimating dozens of home in 2010. “The blast radius would take out the entire building,” she said. “It wouldn’t matter that the art is on the fifth floor.”

The demonstration wrapped up after about 30 minutes, and after a brief excursion to inspect the seals that mark the placement of the gas line across the West Side Highway, the activists headed to the trendy Jane Hotel nearby to celebrate.

“This is the kinda place you gotta go after you inaugurate museums,” Mr. Fischer joked.

Protests against the Spectra pipeline have been happening for several years, and he and other activists have been frustrated, he said, by the Whitney’s relative silence on the matter.

“We kind of understand, in a way, why they’re not talking about it right now,” so close to the opening, he said. “But they have never been interested in talking about it. So presumably the time will never come, unless someone raises it publicly. That’s why we’re doing this.”